


Up on the Peak

by Maldoror_Chant



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Giraffe-box, Hints of a budding Zoro/Kaku, Luffy Being Luffy, Strawhats, swordfights and giraffes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 17:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12237501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: A year after Enies Lobby, Kaku catches up with Roronoa Zoro for a rematch. A battle featuring swords, reasons to fight, a sprinkling of odd emotions and, of course, giraffes.(Timeline: mythical 'post-series' after the Strawhats reach Raftel, get the One Piece and kick the World Government to the carpet.)





	1. Up on the Peak

Fate had picked a good location for their third and final duel. A samurai of the old school would have stopped to compose a brief poem regarding the mist-shrouded mountain pass, the harsh grey stone, the pure drifts of snow soon to be stained with blood. Kaku was an assassin, not a samurai, and he doubted Roronoa Zoro was into poetry any more than he was, but as a place to finally end it, this would do.

Roronoa was a hundred yards up ahead, sitting cross-legged on a large rock, chin on his fist, staring down into a distant, clouded valley. Kaku lengthened his stride. He'd spent months searching for this man. After confirming rumors of Zoro's presence - without his crewmates, amazingly enough - on the larger landmass of this archipelago, it had taken Kaku a week to follow the pirate's oddly erratic path all over the map and finally track him down. The former CP9 agent was a patient man by nature and training, but now that he'd finally caught sight of his quarry, he didn't feel like waiting much longer.

Stones scattered beneath his boots with a clatter. Roronoa glanced around.

"Oh, it's giraffe-guy," said Zoro without the slightest ounce of surprise.

Kaku rolled his eyes beneath the peaked hood of his cap. That wasn't the most auspicious start. 

He stopped twenty feet away from his quarry. "Roronoa Zoro. I've been looking-"

"Do you know how to get to that road from here?"

The jab of Zoro's fingers was directing Kaku's attention to the other side of the steep valley. If the pirate meant the road winding through the flats beyond, it was clearly visible, and, well, right _there_. "...That one? You follow the path I came from just now and turn west at the crossroads. May I ask-"

"I headed that way, but I wound up back here again." Zoro levered himself off the rock to land on his feet in a crunch of shale. "Doesn't matter. I'm guessing that's not what you're here for." And he drew one of his swords from its scabbard on his hip.

Trust Roronoa Zoro to not waste time on meaningless questions. Kaku's twin katana keened in anticipation as they cleared their sheaths. Who needed words?

The two swordsmen circled one another, testing the footing. Pebbles ground under their boots, ice lurked beneath patches of snow on this high mountain pass. Kaku felt the intent calm of battle steal over him. It had been over a year since Enies Lobby, a year since he'd miraculously survived the Buster Call; yet it felt as if they'd just taken a short breather from their previous fight and were getting right on with round two.

Ah, but that wasn't quite true, was it...Kaku attacked, and the grey mountain and misty air blurred white around him as he hit speeds he'd not been capable of a year ago. His vicious swipe hit steel. He'd have been disappointed if Zoro had been that easy to out-maneuver. But the grunt of effort as the pirate blocked his strike was gratifying. 

Then the riposte nearly took his head off. Ah yes, he remembered Roronoa Zoro and his abilities quite well.

They fell apart again. That had been their introduction; a reacquaintance. A whole lot of dialogue in two clashed blades.

"I have been looking for you for months." Kaku planted his swords into the ground so he could shoulder off his pack and long overcoat. He felt no concern about an attack while he was disarmed. 

Zoro ground one boot into shale as if testing the surface, not looking his way. "Did you come with those other CP9 critters? Or is it just you?"

Kaku seized his hilts again. "Just me." 

"Hm. Are you going to be turning into weird giraffe shapes again?"

Kaku's hackles rose, but he forced himself to calm down. He'd been fighting for his life ever since the fall of the world government a few months back, and he'd had all sorts of people mock him for his rather unusual Zoan-type ability. He was used to it by now. Well, sort of used to it. He no longer lost his temper; he was quite levelheaded as he taught the mockers to respect giraffes.

"I've improved since we last fought, Roronoa. I've fully mastered my transformation."

Zoro finally looked up, studying him. "That should be interesting. You were already impressive before."

Kaku should not have felt so pleased at those words. He caught himself sternly and concentrated on his opponent. "And what about you? Have you gotten any better? If not, this will be a really short fight. Your friend Straw Hat became the Pirate King this past year. What have you done?"

"Met the world's greatest swordsman again. Defeated him."

The words were quiet and matter-of-fact. It took Kaku a couple of seconds to fully process their meaning.

"You-...really?" Kaku decided he should have taken _another_ few seconds to process before blurting that out like an idiot.

Zoro nodded once. It never occurred to Kaku to doubt him.

The arc in which Zoro drew his second sword held a singular beauty as it cut the cold, misty air. 

"Yeah. It happened on Raftel. Not many people know. I guess I should have warned you before we started this." That last could almost be an apology for misleading him; a simple, unassuming one, which Kaku - hell, even that surly sod Jyabura - would be unable to take offense at. 

He's changed, Kaku thought, prickles running down his spine, following the faint trace on his skin where his mane appeared when he transformed. Zoro was watching him with the stillness of one who had nothing left to prove. This was not the aggressive young fighter who'd barreled through Enies Lobby last year and fought Kaku to a standstill. This man had...arrived. 

Kaku realized two things. First, since he hadn't known about his opponent's growth, Zoro would probably let him go if the CP9 agent decided to back out of this fight; and second, if he didn't back out, chances were quite good that Roronoa would kill him.

"I have no interest in fighting over the title of world's best," Kaku said slowly.

Zoro tilted his head, as if listening carefully for his next words.

"But..." Kaku lifted his sword and pointed the tip at Zoro's chest. "I decided months ago that I would find you again and defeat you, and that is what I will do."

And at that, the well-remembered edged smile was back, cutting through the serenity. "Ah. I like that."

"I thought you would."

Kaku flipped his swords into an underhand hold and charged, body slashing through the thin, cold air. Zoro was like a rock as he blocked Kaku's steel despite the speed of the improved Soru. Metal scraped, sword to sword, then- 

"Rankyaku!"

Kaku's kick ripped the mountain air apart. But Zoro had stepped aside with an all-too-insolent ease, just leaving the tip of one sword up to parry both katana bearing down on him as he let the slice of the Rankyaku roar past him and hammer some rocks to pieces twenty feet away. A flip of the red-hilted sword shoved back Kaku's blades. Kaku spun and tried another kick, but his target wasn't there anymore.

"You remembered that my whole body is a weapon, I see."

Zoro was standing atop a rock a little way off, both swords swept to the side tip-down, looking at him. "Like I'd forget that..." 

"Are you going to do nothing more than dodge and parry?"

That small, hard smile again. "Nope."

Zoro fell into a loose crouch on top of the boulder- and vanished.

Hotwired on instinct, Kaku threw up his swords to protect his right flank. It felt like the mountain had taken a playful swat at him. His feet rasped through dirt and stone as he was shoved a pace sideways. 

Zoro's swords had clashed into Kaku's at a perpendicular angle to the former assassin's body. Kaku, twisted on himself, had parried with his blades straight up. Their faces a foot apart, they stared at each other over a crosshatch of steel. Up close, Zoro's eyes held that familiar gleam, a light refracting from a place where joy and bloodlust met and mingled. It took Kaku's breath away as much as the blow that'd preceded it.

"That's a new move," Kaku said after taking a gulp of air. His swords, protecting him from getting sliced into three separate pieces of former assassin, were under considerable pressure; up to the standards of the Zoro he remembered. "Does it have a name?"

The side of Zoro's mouth twitched. "Pasta machine?"

Kaku scowled. "Hilarious, Roronoa."

A show of teeth beneath the amused curl of lip. "You're one to talk. Two-sword style, Tiger Claw Strike. And its follow-through, Tiger Claw Swipe."

"What foll-"

In the next split second, Zoro's wrists had flexed, changing the angle of the pressure and letting the blades slip off Kaku's left-hand sword to slice at the latter's neck and shoulder as Zoro charged past.

Kaku was fast enough to twist away from the blades and avoid getting his throat and arm slit, but it was close. Too close; he felt a burn of cold air followed by a thin thread of pain trailing across his left bicep. One of the swords had scored in passing. It would have sliced him to the bone, but he'd engaged Tekkai just as it bit down. 

He managed to slam a foot backwards into Zoro's lower ribs as his opponent passed him, but the spontaneous blow wasn't strong enough to harm Roronoa or even make him stumble. By the time Kaku had gotten his balance back, Zoro was already fifteen feet away, turning back towards him, gracefully flicking out his blades into that tip-down stance that seemed to be waiting for Kaku to finally get around to impressing him.

Kaku let his breath out in a burst. "You got angry last time when I said this, but...this is still fun."

Zoro snorted. "Since I'm not in such a bloody hurry this time, yeah, I guess it is."

Kaku changed the hold on one hilt to reach up and finger the cut beneath the ripped sleeve. Three inches of a deep scratch, despite Tekkai. First blood to Roronoa. Kaku acknowledge it with a nod. 

"I'm in no hurry either, but I guess it's time to get serious now."

With a flex of willpower, the transformation flowed through his body. He could feel his mass increase. His muscles gained tawny, predatory strength; speckles ran down his thickening skin. The informal black suit he wore, special CP9 gear that had been designed for the likes of Lucci and Jyabura, stretched to accommodate his new bulk. His limbs, his other weapons, lengthened, his swords still grasped firmly in fingers that were now half-covered with hoof-horn like armored gloves. 

Zoro's eyes narrowed almost to slits as he watched. Then he lifted one of his swords in Kaku's direction. "Nice try. But you have no idea what I've been through this past year, the things I've seen. My training is now complete. I won't fall for your distractions anymore."

"Distractions?" Kaku tilted his head on his lengthened neck, trying to make sense of that. When he did, it felt like the top of his head had lifted clean off in a small explosion of anger. "I'm not trying to distract you, you bastard! I'm serious here! This is my best fighting form!" 

Zoro stared at him, then dropped the blade onto his shoulder and said: "Really?"

"YES!"

"...Could have fooled me. Okay, show me what you got."

"With pleasure," the giraffe-man ground out, and attacked. 

He now had thirty inches on Zoro's height, and a longer reach as well. The short hilts of his custom-made katana were designed for a one-handed grip, but the length of the blades matched nodachi; his new height and strength put the two long swords to best use. Especially when his strike was fuelled by Soru and a small degree of legitimate annoyance. Zoro met the attack, but only for a moment; then he had to fall back before it. Kaku's blades rang solidly against his opponent's, driving him further. 

Roronoa growled, twisted under one strike and got in closer, negating some of the advantages of Kaku's longer blades. With the black-handled sword he blocked Kaku's katana as they crossed in an effort to slice him to bits, and he darted in from the flank, which meant Kaku couldn't use Rankyaku in that crucial second. 

The red-handled sword was aimed straight at his head-

Looked like Roronoa had forgotten just how much his adversary's whole body was a weapon.

Kaku whipped around and slammed forward with the blunt hammer of his nose. He had the thrill of hearing a muttered 'Shit!' from his opponent as Zoro twisted out of the way a split second before he picked up a square hole straight through the middle of his chest. The red-hilted katana whistled harmlessly over Kaku's lowered head and flexible neck, and the black one went flying back under a powerful, well-timed counterstrike, almost wrenched from Zoro's fingers.

Zoro vaulted backwards and skidded through the rocks and the rubble twenty feet away. He stayed there, half crouched, staring at Kaku in an unreadable way. 

"I believe we've had this conversation before," Kaku said, dropping the tips of his swords and crossing them near the ground in a stance as formal as his words. "My Zoan ability may not look as impressive as Lucci's or Jyabura's, but used properly it can be just as devastating. Giraffes are powerful animals. They may be herbivores, but even lions avoid them. I happen to like them, too. Now, when you're ready to take me seriously..."

Zoro didn't answer. Not directly. But he nodded faintly and drew his third sword, and that was answer enough for Kaku.

There was a click as Zoro placed the white sword's hilt between his teeth. It should have looked ridiculous - and Kaku, still smarting about how everyone and their parrot ridiculed his transformation, would not have felt too cheap pointing that out. But it didn't look ridiculous. The way the hilt stretched Zoro's mouth into a straight, hard line like a permanent bloodthirsty grin, teeth white and feral...Kaku had remembered that from their fight on Enies Lobby, in fact it'd stayed in his mind rather more than he'd wanted it to.

Zoro took one step forward- and then things went very fast again. Kaku staggered as he realized he'd parried in the wrong direction. He threw himself back- Zoro hammered the ground to shreds where he'd been standing. Kaku's skin twitched as pebbles hit him like missiles. He retaliated with a double kick that tore deep grooves in the ground, but Zoro was already elsewhere, attacking from the other side. 

Santoryuu, Kaku thought with a crazy lopsided grin of his own. It wasn't just three swords or a series of combos. It was like the air around him had turned into sharp, pointy steel, with only a few gaps here and there. 

And I am one of the very few people in the world who can actually fight this guy, Kaku thought with a stir of wonder. Facing this adversary, the best he could find, was the first time Kaku was able to fully measure his own progress since their last fight. The crucible of this last year of hell had truly improved him. CP9 training was one of the best in the world, but being a one-time assassin of the former world government pursued by bounty hunters, reformed marines, vengeful pirates and just about everybody, he'd gained an edge he hadn't possessed before. He'd fought the best and the worst this past year, while desperately trying to figure out what had happened to everything he'd believed in...

Swords crashed; slid apart in a shower of sparks and a drawn-out hiss of steel. 

Kaku smiled grimly. He didn't have to think about his months of wandering right now. He didn't have to think at all. In fact, thinking was a good way of getting sliced limb from limb at this point. Time to shelve thinking and try to score on this bastard, the one person he'd wanted to fight, instead of just having to for his survival. 

Their battle was epic. Kaku lost count of the strikes and counterstrikes; details lost in flashing steel and killing grace. One moment stood out; hanging in mid-air as they crossed guards beneath a gap that one of their blows had opened in the mountainside. A massive rockslide crashed down into the valley below, but where they hung, suspended, the chill air was quiet and clear. 

Then they were skidding apart as they landed in the rubble on either side of the newborn ravine. Kaku straightened and turned back towards his opponent, to see Zoro do the same in mirror image; both with one fist extended towards the other, swords parallel. This singular moment in time was the apex of a swordsman's hopes. The air tasted like snow, dust and distilled glory as it rushed through Kaku's lungs. 

They stood there, panting, then of a common accord both men turned to climb further up the pass, looking for new and more stable ground. Kaku marked with a glance the area where he'd dropped his pack and coat earlier, near the duffle bag Zoro had left on the rock; miraculously still intact, as their fight had moved on from where they'd started. Kaku had the feeling, deep down, that he would not be needing his sparse belongings anymore...but that future was hanging in the pure mountain air like a feather balanced on the edge of a sword. It could still fall either way. 

At least there was nothing to interfere with their battle this time; no distractions, no orders, no crazy masked guys handcuffed to Zoro, or Jyabura annoying Kaku by being his aggressive, idiotic self...Nothing but crossed steel. 

"Fate did me a favor, letting me find you without those other pirates around." Kaku flicked red speckles from the edge of one of his swords. Second blood - and third - had been his. After that, he'd lost count. "Did you leave them behind when you became the best?"

Zoro gave him an odd look, as if those words had made less sense than birdsong. "No, they're around."

Kaku felt a prickle of foreboding crawl up his neck, as well as the urge to glance around. Legend itself could barely encompass the deeds of Luffy the Pirate King these days. If the dreaded Straw Hat decided to interfere on behalf of his First Mate- but then he shook his head sharply. "That's a lie. I've been tracking you down for a week now. I know you're alone."

Zoro's eyes narrowed at the word 'lie'. "We got separated during a fight with Blackbeard's lieutenant to the north of here a few days ago. I was supposed to meet up with them at a rendezvous point on this island, but I keep missing them." There was an oddly rueful grin to go along with the next words. "Yeah...from my rubber-brained captain and the money-grubbing harpy, all the way through to the dumbass pervert-cook and the other weirdos, my nakama are here. Somewhere. As soon as I'm done with you, I'll go find them." 

Kaku felt an irrational surge of something awfully like envy. It plummeted down into the rift that had opened in his soul this past year. For as long as he could remember, he'd had colleagues rather than friends. The CP9 agents had gotten along okay, worked well together, counted on each other to do their respective jobs, but he'd never felt close to any of them, even after five years undercover. All the others were dead now, and he felt no more than a passing regret. They'd shared a common belief in Peace and Justice and a good deal of blood, innocent and otherwise, on their hands, but that was pretty much all that had bound them together. Kaku had chosen long ago to compromise his honor for a greater cause, while the others had been proud of possessing no honor at all other than in fulfilling their mission. As a result, they would not understand what Kaku was doing here today. Not the way Zoro understood. 

He shook his head and lifted his swords again. "Enough. We've gone beyond the level we fought at before, but you're still holding back." Which was more than could be said for Kaku, who'd been going full out for the past ten minutes. "Show me what it really means to be the greatest swordsman, Roronoa Zoro."

Zoro slowly bent his head; maybe it was a nod of resignation, maybe not. "I guess it's time." 

He fit the white sword's hilt between his teeth again without a further word, and held the other two at his side, arms loose and head still bent; a stance that was almost fully open, defenseless. And then he just stood there. 

Kaku frowned. He'd been expecting Zoro to put on his bandana and start giving it his all. But this...what was this? It didn't feel like Kaku was being mocked...but he didn't see how Zoro could pull anything special out of that pose. Kaku's lifetime of training whispered to approach carefully, test it out, not take unnecessary risks that could endanger him and compromise his mission. But he wasn't on a mission, he was no longer a CP9 agent, his life was his own and nobody particularly wanted it. 

He hefted his swords - unnamed, but as much a part of him as his arms and legs and heart - and charged in with his most lethal attack, the one he rarely used because it was an all-or-nothing gamble. Spinning with all the speed of Soru and the strength he'd earned, he unleashed two times four strikes, swords and legs, so fast as to be almost simultaneous. Vicious. Implacable. Impossible to dodge. Kaku's whole body was the weapon. And-

Nothing!

Zoro still stood there. Kaku hadn't even seen him parry! But- 

There was something in the air. In the way Zoro had closed his eyes.

A rumbling underfoot. Kaku staggered, tried to defend-

But there was no defending against that attack. Zoro had been fighting at Kaku's level before, but this surpassed it by a mile. This was the level of the one who'd become the greatest swordsman in the world. It unfurled with the quiet, deadly force of tidal waves, carrying all before it. It struck him full on and he could do nothing.

That was beautiful, Kaku thought. He was floating. There was no pain, just a sense of peace and finality.

Then he hit the ground with one hell of a thump and there was _considerable_ pain before he mercifully blacked out.

The world was still made of hurt when he woke up, though it was a bit more manageable. 

"Whu...?"

Something was tugging at him. Kaku tried to lift a hand to bat it away. It felt like lifting a cannon ball. "Ugh."

"Don't move. Nearly done."

That voice brought him back to his senses in an instant. It also brought him the realization that he shouldn't have any senses left to come back to at all. Roronoa Zoro had killed him. Surely. Er, right?

The tugging turned out to be Zoro's hands, fastening a bandage across Kaku's chest near the shoulder. As Kaku's eyes focused down the length of his prone body and on his surroundings, he realized he had quite a lot of chunky white cloth wrapped around him, stained here and there with red. He was propped up awkwardly against a low boulder, head and shoulder cushioned by his own long overcoat and pack so that Zoro could get the bandages around his torso without too much jarring. 

That bastard...had had so much control over that final breathtaking blow...that he'd not even killed his opponent. That much skill was just not allowed.

Kaku's hand - human, he'd lost the transformation when he'd passed out - felt gingerly at the bandages on his chest. The limb weighed a subjective twenty pounds, but his fingers were under a bit more control now. It seemed there wasn't even any permanent damage under all the wrappings; the power behind the blow had been what had knocked him out. Chances were he'd survive. Well...damn...

He aimed a glare at Zoro. The man had let him live on Enies Lobby too, but that was only because the pirate had been in a hurry and probably assumed, quite logically, that the Buster Call would finish the job for him. He'd certainly not taken the time to bandage up his enemy. And this- this was their final challenge, their ultimate duel. What was the idiot playing at?!

"Don't get frisky, giraffe-guy. I'm not as good at fixing things as Chopper is. If you get excited, something might fall off. Something like your torso." Zoro bit his lower lip and frowned in concentration, fixing the last bandage with a short bowknot before sitting back on his heels. "You won't be able to move very well for awhile anyway. You got hammered pretty bad. And you're gonna feel downright shitty until you can figure out how to unwind the bandages that have the seastone wrapped in them." Zoro poked a particularly lumpy pack of dressing over Kaku's ribs with a finger, and Kaku felt a wash of weakness and nausea wrack him as something hard, smooth and cold under the cloth rubbed against his skin.

No wonder he felt even worse than shock, multiple cuts and blood loss could explain. 

"Seastone?! That's low!" Kaku's voice was like the croak of an infuriated crow. He coughed, and that hurt hellaciously, flooding his mouth with the taste of bitter, bloody copper and bile. 

Zoro tossed a roll of bandages into his duffle bag, picked up his swords and got to his feet. He glanced down at his indignant opponent only in passing. "It's for your own good. It'll force you to take it easy for a little while and give me a head start. You're the kind of guy who'd keep on following me and fighting me, however hopeless. And it is hopeless. Even if you weren't all beat up, you don't stand a chance against me with your present form."

"You better get rid of me or I will prove you wrong if I have to follow you to hell to do so." Kaku tried to tear away the bandages on his rib. There weren't any wounds under the seastone, but the whole mess of dressings was wrapped any which way, covering him from hip to shoulder, tied with crude knots, and each time his hand touched the stone his whole body flinched and his fingers went numb.

Then the hilt of a white katana poked him in the shoulder, catching his attention. Zoro was crouched before him, a serious, uncompromising look on his face.

"Kaku, if you want to stand a chance of beating me, you need a reason."

Kaku's breath came fast and painfully. He shoved the hilt away and tried to struggle into a more upright position. "I have a reason!"

"No, you just have desire." 

The wholly unexpected word made Kaku start up in surprise, jarring his injury - and an undefined flurry of horrified embarrassment came out of nowhere and made him cringe.

Zoro went right on talking. "The desire to defeat me isn't going to cut it. You need a reason. Your technique, your endurance, your strength, they're all far above just about everybody else's, but you're still beneath my level and you'll never break through that final barrier if you don't have a reason. You said once you were impressed I'd improved so much when we met again on Enies Lobby; that's because I had a reason when we fought that second time. You were standing between me and my nakama. That meant you were screwed. I'd have walked right through you and gotten that key even if you'd managed to kill me in the process. That's what I call a reason."

Kaku tried to leverage himself onto to his feet, but wobbled and fell down onto the rock against which he'd been previously propped. His injuries ached, but he could ignore pain, he could even ignore the sick-wrong sense of draining from the seastone. He couldn't ignore the surge of hurt and anger at those words, emotions that shot through his calmer nature and cracked the iron control of his training. 

"A reason? I have no more reasons. I used to live for Justice, but you destroyed that. You and your friend the Pirate King destroyed the very structure that made it." 

The steely look on Zoro's face faded into a scowl and he leaned back and screwed a disrespectful finger into his ear as if Kaku's reply had been physically irritating. "Bull. We helped boot out a government that said it was okay to murder its citizens in order to protect them. If that's what you think justice is, then you need to think some more. I'm just a pirate and even I know that. Find a better reason, you herbivorous cretin."

"...Why are you telling me all this? Why don't you just kill me?"

"You helped me reach a new level when we fought in the Tower of Justice. I improved because of you." Zoro straightened up and took a step back, slipping the white katana into his belt. And - oddly, insanely - he suddenly smiled, mouth quirking beneath the eyes that still looked so fierce. "But I'm not letting you live out of a sense of obligation. Back on Enies Lobby, I would have gladly shot all you CP9 creeps into the sea. Behind all that talk of 'Justice' and 'Keeping the Peace', your boss Lucci was a cold, sadistic fucker and your pal the Wolf-boy should have been put down by a vet. But you were just that little bit different. I knew that when our swords crossed. You were kind of an arrogant git and your ideals were pretty screwy, but you fought honorably to the end. I respected your strength and spirit. I still do. I may be the best right now, but I don't want to get soft. If you ever find your reason, then you'll be the finest adversary I can hope for." 

Zoro turned on his heels, for which Kaku was thankful because his own confused feelings must be plastered all over his face.

"Besides..." Zoro had taken two steps away, but paused and scratched his ear, making the earrings tinkle. Kaku caught the edge of a smirk on the sliver of profile he could see. "...I guess I have to admit that I kinda like giraffes too."

Kaku's burst of laughter nearly spilled him from the rock. It earned him a full-blown grin as Zoro turned back to watch him chortle like a lunatic. 

It rapidly got too painful to bear, so Kaku forced his mirth, or maybe hysteria, back under control. He looked up at the best in the world, swords hanging easy at his side, a half-smile on his face beneath the severe slant of his brows, in those plain clothes and dirty haramaki. It was a good image to add to those awe-inspiring ones of the unleashed killer.

"Take care," Zoro said and abruptly turned away. "Next time, let's have a drink and laugh some more before we fight, in case one of us dies."

Kaku watched him tromp off down the mountain pass. 'In case one of us dies'...That might sound grim to ordinary people. For swordsmen, it was a promise, an oddly intimate one...An oath between them, a bond; but already stretching thin as Zoro's back receded. Chances were, what with their respective lifestyles, they would not survive to meet each other again.

No. Not so fast. Something in Kaku revolted at being parted quite like this.

His swords had been stood up against the same boulder as his backpack; a respectful hand had sheathed them and removed some of the dirt from the hilts. One of them rang as it left its scabbard. The figure ahead immediately stopped; turned, startled, as that hiss of steel was followed by a long rip of cloth.

"You really think in straight lines if you believe a chunk of seastone in my bandages would slow me down," Kaku commented, examining the dark pellet amid the snowy white of dressings drenched in red that now lay at his feet. "I guess I'm just more underhanded than you."

"You're also an idiot if you think you can take me on now." Behind Zoro's growl, there was something like disappointment. "Do you want to die that badly?"

"No, I want you to take your seastone with you. Handy bits that size are expensive on the black market, which is the only place a pirate like you would get any. Keep it. You might need it against another devil fruit user. I won't follow you if you don't want me to."

Boots crunched towards him. Kaku stared fixedly at the black seastone. A smart man would assume Kaku was going to these lengths to attempt one last desperate ambush as soon as his opponent was within striking distance. But Zoro didn't think that way, because he did not hesitate as he reached into Kaku's field of vision, scooped up the stone between two fingers, spun it up in the air and caught it in his palm. Kaku followed its path until it was slipped into a pocket of those dark pants.

"You wrecked the bandages I spent so much effort on," Zoro groused.

"Looks that way." There were still enough of the mess of wrappings left to stop him from hemorrhaging. Pretty much. Almost certainly. Kaku put a hand to his ribs and leaned against his sword like a staff, head heavy and vision wobbling a bit.

"So...you won't be attacking me right away?"

"No. I'll need to find a reason first." Kaku briefly wondered why he'd said that. Even if it was true, he shouldn't have admitted it aloud; he still had some pride. Pride and the will to live, it seemed. He'd survived this past year despite Buster Calls, bounty hunters and the full force of certain members of the ex-world government who wanted their ex-assassin silenced. Maybe he was just too stubborn to die. He might have lost Justice, his purpose, his place in this world, but dying felt too much like giving up. And he certainly didn't want to do that now; how else would he improve enough to match this man if he died here today?

Zoro didn't comment, he just said, "Which way you going?"

"Huh?" Kaku finally tore his gaze away from those dark trousers - that blood loss was sure making him do weird things, yes sir - and stared up into Zoro's eyes. "I..." Where _was_ he going? He'd been intent on intercepting Zoro, he'd not thought of afterwards. "Back down to the coast, I guess. To book passage off this island. I...don't know where after that."

"Down to that fishing village? At the end of the valley road? I'm heading that way too."

"...Oh."

"Maybe we can get that drink on the way. While we wait for you to get ready to fight again."

Kaku stared at the hand being offered him. It was a weird direction for his life to take, but he had been feeling directionless recently so that had to count as an improvement, right?

He grasped the hand and didn't protest when Zoro hoisted his arm over a strong shoulder and headed down the mountain once more.


	2. Out Over the Waves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This was written originally at the end of the Water 7 arc and so I did not realize there would be an additional Strawhat added to the crew at that point. So here, the only Strawhats are Luffy, Zoro, Namy, Sanji, Usopp, Chopper and Robin. I hadn't known the name of the ship that would replace the Merry at that point either, but I ret-conned it into the fic.

From the crest of the hill, the view of the bay was picturesque, with its small fishing town, its harbor and its thorough lack of pirate vessels bobbing on the waves.

Zoro scorched the morning air with a bitten-off swearword. "Where the hell are they? Nami's message said they'd be here by now."

Hands in his pockets, Kaku shrugged. There could be any number of reasons why Zoro's ship wasn't at the rendezvous, most of them bad, but Zoro looked more pissed off than worried. Considering how very, very tough his ship and crewmates were, he was probably right; it was more likely to be a miscalculation on someone's part rather than anything sinister. Offhand, Kaku couldn't think of anyone around here tough enough to send that vessel and all hands aboard down to play with the krakens.

"Damn it, now what do we do? Hmm, let's go ask the people on that boat if they've heard where Luffy is." Zoro hooked a thumb at the single ship at quay.

He took off towards the town's outskirts before Kaku could say anything. The former CP9 agent took a good long look at the harbor and then followed, lengthening his stride to catch up.

"Zoro, that boat, as you call it, is a first-class Marine man-of-war," Kaku felt obligated to say.

Zoro grunted.

A creaking cart pulled by somnolent oxen rolled past them. Once the clatter of wheels on cobbles had faded, Kaku asked, "How much bounty did you have on your head, last time you checked?"

"Dunno. It's hard to keep track of these days, it kept changing just before we found the One Piece. It's generally around two thirds of Luffy's."

Two thirds of astronomical, then. "I see."

They passed fishing nets and sails strung out for repairs, and plunged into narrow streets between ramshackle sailor hovels.

"And are you really going to go ask those Marines where to find your captain?" 

"Yeah. If the Marines don't know where the Pirate King was last sighted, nobody else around here will."

"A very logical assumption." Kaku scratched the back of his head, nudging his cap forward. "I do see one flaw in your plan, though..."

"Oh, I know they won't know exactly where Luffy is and where he's going, but they'll have a general idea, and I just want to know if he's anywhere near here or if we got it completely wrong."

"Right." Kaku decided to just wait and see how it played out. He'd been traveling with Zoro for nearly two weeks now and, on the bright side, it was rarely boring. 

Without looking, he reached over and snagged the back of Zoro's shirt as the latter took a sharp turn to the right.

"What?" Zoro grumbled, arrested mid-stride.

"If you really want to do this, then the harbor is that way."

"You sure? We have to go down, and this slope is steeper."

"It's also in the wrong direction, and yes, I am quite sure."

Zoro shrugged and went down the correct street. Kaku followed, speculating once more about the blow to the head Zoro must have received early on in his career. For such a deadly, intuitive fighter to have such a crappy grasp of relational and spatial distance beyond the range of his attacks, the brain damage had to be remarkably specific (Zoro hadn't been interested in his thoughts on the matter and claimed that he always followed 'the directions that made sense', implying that it was the rest of the world that was wrong when it failed to correspond to what he expected). 

There was a small crowd gathered on the stone pier near the man-of-war's disembarkation ramp. Kaku automatically sorted them out into 'Marines', 'Port-town toughs' and 'Innocent bystanders, avoid harming when the situation inevitably goes sour'. Kaku had had a government license to kill since the age of fifteen, but he'd been taught to treat it responsibly, and he and his colleagues had always tried to keep casualties to a dutiful minimum; with the exception perhaps of Jyabura, who should have been taught the same lesson again, possibly with the help of a choke-chain.

A tall, handsome man with the double gold bars of a Captain shining on his epaulettes, was addressing a small group of local yokels. Each dramatic hand gesture swept his white overcoat like a cape. 

"-cowardly pirates ran when they saw our superior firepower. Your town is safe at present. Now, my good people, in the name of the Reformed World Order Marines, we need provisions. Fresh water and a few other essentials, my quartermaster will be in touch. Then we will hunt them down. Every pirate who has dared to set foot in your fair city to wreak havoc and terror will be thrown in jail by tonight, as sure as my name is-..." 

Kaku never did learn the man's name, because the crowd of sea-wise fishermen had taken one look at the total of two men and five swords advancing towards them and given the pair a respectful berth. That left the still unnamed captain making his proud pronouncement about pirates and jail just as Zoro came to a stop in front of him, hands hooked in his haramaki and an impatient look on his face.

"...errrr..."

"Hey," said Zoro in the awe-inspiring silence that had fallen, "does anyone know where the Thousand Sunny was last sighted?"

"You..."

Zoro scrutinized the captain who'd gone as stiff as a board, an arm still pointing roughly skyward, stuck in declamatory mode. Then Zoro's gaze swept the rest of the crew on shore. Most of the Marines were as white as their uniform. "Anyone?"

"Roronoa Zoro," the captain croaked.

"Yeah. You seen it?"

"Um..." A titanic struggle was taking place under the peaked white cap. "Roronoa Zoro...By Article Six of the Reformed Marine Code, I am charged with apprehending you and taking you with us to the nearest-"

"Not interested in going." Zoro glanced up at the men staring down at him from the huge ship's railings. "Hey!" A collective flinch at the sudden shout. "Any of you guys know where Straw Hat Luffy is at this point in time?"

The Captain coughed weakly. "If you plan on resisting arrest, I will have to...have to call for reinforcements." His subordinates carefully avoided looking at him or each other; nobody seemed to be in any hurry to suggest that a fully armed man-of-war with a standard crew of eleven hundred should be enough to capture one man. Then the captain's hunted gaze locked onto Kaku a few feet behind Zoro.

"Hah! You! I recognize you!" he exclaimed, obviously relieved and in a hurry to redeem himself. "We can arrest pirates any day; a traitor takes priority. According to the warrant, you are wanted by um..."

The captain trailed off again as Zoro swung around to give him an interested look. The Marine officer must not have realized the two men had arrived together until now. It'd probably been the shock of seeing Zoro stroll up to him in the first place.

The captain tried again, each half-formed sentence offered like a mild suggestion to the unblinking eyes beneath the harsh cut of green eyebrows. "Um...that man is wanted by the New World _pirate_ council as well...extradition agreements...for questioning regarding crimes...assassinations...wanted as a material witness by the Reformed World Courts...um...I should really try to arrest him...and take him to the port of New Haven...?"

Zoro tilted his head Kaku's way. "Want to go with them?" 

Kaku rubbed his nose. "The reformation made CP9 very unpopular. I'd get sentenced to Impel Down, assuming one of the old guard didn't arrange for a suicide in my cell in order to silence me before the courts got a hold of my testimony."

Zoro looked back towards the captain. "He's not interested in going either."

"Okay," the captain squeaked.

"Sir, I suggest you check those warrants again," Kaku added, not unkindly. "I can't imagine what they say about Zoro, but I'm pretty sure the directives on my own Wanted notice are to report my whereabouts to the new branch of Marine Intelligence and let them handle it, not to arrest me directly." 

"Quite possibly," the captain croaked. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"We're wasting our time," Zoro growled, then glanced down at a tug on his sleeve.

An elderly lady, extremely hunched over in an overlarge sailor's mac, squinted up at him. "Young man, are you Roronoa Zoro?"

"Yeah?" 

"I'm the mayor of this town," the wizened creature declared, in a surprisingly loud, harsh voice that spoke of long years shouting orders aboard fishing trawlers. "I have a message for you, from them pirates who were here."

"Pirates?" Zoro leaned forward, studying her intently. "Were they my crew?"

"Aye, believe so. This young Marine here is wrong, them pirates wracked no havoc or terror in our town. Though that kid with the straw hat did eat a whole cow straight off the spit. Never seen the likes of it."

Zoro smirked. "That's Luffy alright."

"That's who he said he was. Oh, and your brother was on board as well, young man."

Kaku blinked repeatedly, since that last had been addressed to him. "My- I don't have a brother, Madam."

"Cousin, then."

"I have no cousins either."

"...Long-lost son?" 

"I'm not _that_ old - and yes, I know I speak a bit-"

"She means Usopp," Zoro interrupted. "Tell me, ma'am, when were they here?"

"Less than an hour ago. They were here three days, then they sailed off westward just before these boys arrived." Her tart tone suggested that the Marines' arrival after the fact was more than just a happy coincidence. The captain, who was standing with his hands behind his back and his handsome face lifted to the sky, trying to pretend he didn't have two wanted criminals within arm's reach, went a funny shade of purple.

Zoro straightened up to stare off into the horizon - in a southeasterly direction, Kaku noted absently. "Damn. Did they say where they were going?"

"Nope, but they left this with me."

Zoro ripped open the envelope with 'For Zoro!' scrawled upon it. Kaku expected a map or coordinates. Even from where he stood, he could see that the only thing on the paper were the words 'Go down to the harbor, turn right and follow the coast', scribbled in an unsophisticated hand. 

Zoro turned to the right and studied the rocky shoreline - this time Kaku noted that yes, indeed, he was facing westward. "An hour ago, you said?"

"That's right. I think the pretty young girl with the orange hair said they needed to dry-dock for repairs, so maybe they're going to Makine. It has a shipyard."

Zoro tapped Kaku on the shoulder in passing. "Come on." And then he was sprinting along the pier, heading towards the rocky shore.

Kaku quickly tipped his cap to the mayor. "Thank you, Madam. Good luck with your future arrests, Captain. Men." One of the lieutenants - a distantly familiar face from the old Enies Lobby guard detail - half-sketched a salute before he caught himself. The captain just stuck his nose further up in the air. Nobody else moved. Kaku broke into a run, catching up with Zoro in a couple of high-speed bounds.

They ran along the base of the coastal cliffs, leaping from rock to rock. They couldn't possibly catch up with a ship this way, but Kaku didn't mind the exercise now that he was all but recovered from their duel two weeks back. Up ahead, the bay curved out to sea to form a long cape. They could go over it and gain time, since Kaku was there to make sure Zoro wouldn’t get lost on a straight line. Makine was the next big town along the coast, two days sailing west and north from here. Zoro should be able to catch up with his ship there, and then Kaku could be on his way.

A keening whistle ripped the air, a sound all too familiar. Kaku engaged Tekkai automatically and fell into a crouch. Twenty feet up ahead of Zoro, rocks exploded, hammering the water into whitecaps. Kaku heard the second shell and got ready to dodge shrapnel. The cliff to their left shuddered and slowly crumbled into the ocean.

Zoro looked at the destruction a few feet away from him, then he turned a chillingly neutral stare towards the open water where the Marine vessel was sailing towards them. The ship was turning to bear more than their two stern cannons at the criminals. 

"No!" Kaku shouted. "Leave them alone. They're just following orders." The upright, solitary figure hadn't drawn a weapon or done anything threatening, unlike the man-of-war which was getting ready to broadside the coast and shell it into oblivion, but Kaku knew exactly who he was concerned for and it wasn't Zoro. He might have been disgraced from Cipher Pol and become part of the Marines' Most Wanted, but he wasn't going to stand by and watch Roronoa sink that ship just because its captain was an absolute idiot who'd suddenly found a shred of wretched courage. 

"They are shooting at us," Zoro pointed out, still way too calm for Kaku's liking. Zoro was easy to get along with when he swore or grumbled or grinned or snored, but when those things fell away like a scabbard, revealing the pure steel that had been forged beneath...Kaku didn’t know this side too well yet, he'd only seen it a couple of times and he wasn't sure where this Zoro's boundaries were, or if he even had any. Kaku had heard some worrisome things about Hawkeyes, Zoro's predecessor...

Zoro's expression didn't change as he drew one sword in a gesture that was a blur even to Kaku. A wide groove ploughed through the sea before him, and sixty feet away a whole lot of incoming cannon balls suddenly exploded in mid-air.

The sword was already back in its scabbard. "Come on, then. Let's just hope they don't blow up the coastline we're trying to follow."

"No, we should be fine." Kaku turned to jump to the next rock. "It'll take them a minute to reload. If we hurry, we'll be over the cape in less than that, and they'll have to sail around it and maneuver to get a shot at us." He glanced at the man running at his side. "Thank you."

Zoro's only answer was a snort. Kaku gathered that Roronoa wouldn’t have bothered harming the pests even if there hadn't been anyone to intervene on their behalf. He was still grateful, though. 

Running full out left the man-of-war floundering mid-turn behind them. The Marines hadn't expected two men on foot to run that fast. The vessel would recover and come after them soon, but the cape was straight ahead, a hundred-foot high tumble of steep rock which wouldn't be an obstacle to them, and then they'd be out of firing range and hidden inland. 

Kaku scrambled to the top of the cape and glanced back at the man-of-war. He didn't resent the attack; on the contrary. At one point after the fall of the World Government, he'd considered joining the counter-rebellion, but he'd found them to be a bunch of mad dogs intent on regaining their privileges or satisfying their desire for tyranny and destruction. Kaku had not recognized peace or justice in their actions; he'd killed the worst of them and left. Those marines back there, shooting at him...The leaders and the policies might have changed, but those men were still doing their job, and right was on their side. He hoped the sight of two dangerous criminals running away from them had salvaged their pride at having let Zoro and Kaku walk off in the first place. 

Then Zoro's wild shout up ahead made him forget all about Marines and right and wrong. "It's the Sunny!"

The cape was a thin prong of land, barely half a mile across at the point where they were. The Thousand Sunny was on the other side, only a hundred yards away. The Straw Hats must have tacked close around the cape and were now hugging the coastline to their next destination, gliding past unhurriedly at half sail.

"Shit! I don't think they saw us! Hurry up!"

For normal men, it was a leap beyond imagining. It was a stretch even for Kaku. But when he saw Zoro jump down the cape to the coastline, crack a rock beneath his gathered momentum and throw himself over the waves, Kaku followed. The sea was a deep, cold threat below him. Kaku used three footholds in the air to throw himself at the ship sailing away down the coastline. He barely made it, even with Geppou, but he fell onto hard wooden planks rather than in the merciless ocean. 

There was a thunk to one side of the ship. A hand grasped the railing, and then a soaking-wet Zoro vaulted over the gunwale and landed beside Kaku, grinning like a fiend. "Damn it, you stupid bastards! You nearly left without me again!"

Kaku's ears picked up the sound of ropes and wood creaking some distance away. The Marine ship must have sped up and had tacked around the cape...and was now heading straight out to open sea at full sail. The Pirate King's Jolly Roger had been spotted. The way the man-of-war's riggings were beating in the wind after the change in direction, Kaku had the fleeting impression the whole Marine ship was quaking in fear.

"ZORO!"

Something small and furry hurtled past Kaku to latch onto Zoro's leg. 

A door slammed open on the upper deck behind them. A fair-haired man in an apron emerged from the forecastle, a sardonic grin on his face as he looked down at Zoro. "Well, look at what the cat-..."

Then he noticed the other new arrival and his grin evaporated. 

The door to the bottom deck opened. Nico Robin stepped out, a book in one hand, a smile shaping on her face, which she also lost when she saw Kaku. 

There was a flicker of motion and then the man in the apron was straightening up, hands in his pockets, standing between the former CP9 agent and Robin. This would be Sanji, the ship's cook, Kaku recalled. The cook, and also the guy who'd slammed Jyabura into the ground hard enough to leave a crater and break three bones. Kaku turned to face him fully, hands conspicuously away from his weapons, muscles gearing for Tekkai.

Footsteps tumbled down the stairs. "Did I just hear Zoro- What the hell?!" The red-haired girl gaped at Kaku- then the cook reached over, hooked her gently by the elbow and pulled her back from the forecastle steps to stand behind him as well.

"Huh?!" 

"Who-"

Kaku was at the center of a growing circle of silence, and that's when he finally wondered just why the hell had he gone and done that for...

And, last but not least, a loud boing and a holler of 'ZORO!' preceded someone stretching down from the crow's nest, landing in front of the first mate and slapping him on the back hard enough to make him stagger. Straw Hat Luffy, the dread Pirate King, conqueror of the New World, destroyer of the old. Currently squinting at Kaku with his head tilted to one side, one hand still raised to pummel Zoro some more. 

"Eh? Who are you? Are you related to Usopp?"

"Idiot! He's that CP9 assassin!" the redheaded navigator barked.

The cook had shot off a high kick so fast it looked like a reflex, making his captain's head twang on his neck like elastic. "One of the guys who took Robin away at Water 7, blockhead. Remember?"

"He's the one who shoved Merry into the Aqua Laguna," said someone who hadn't spoken yet.

Kaku remembered this man, beaten and bloody in Franky's hangar, yelling at the CP9 agent to leave his ship alone...Usopp. It was obvious why the mayor thought they were related. The chill in the air made it one hell of an awkward family reunion, though. 

"Oh yeah, the carpenter-guy who jumps off buildings. What are you doing here?" Luffy asked. He'd frowned at Usopp's words, but the question sounded merely curious.

Kaku looked at Zoro. Zoro scratched his ear, making the earrings ting, turned and walked away. He slipped his swords from his belt, leaned them up against the forecastle stairs and then sat down on the steps with the comfortable stretch of someone coming home after a long trip.

The cook gave both swordsmen a hard speculative glance, then he jerked his chin at Kaku. "Gonna try to arrest us, copper?" 

Kaku looked at Zoro again. Zoro looked straight back. He'd had the same light in his eyes when Kaku had used his Zoan transformation two weeks ago and Zoro has asked him to 'show me what you got'.

"No," Kaku finally said, "I'm...no longer with Cipher Pol or any government agency."

The talking ball of fluff had relocated when Zoro had moved, from failing to hide behind Zoro's leg to failing to hide behind Luffy's. Weird critter...Chop? Chopper, that was it. It - he, rather, stared at Kaku with those big velvety eyes. "Did you...did you maybe come to apologize for taking Robin last year?"

"No." Because if there was one thing Kaku was never going to apologize for, it was for doing his job. He hadn't always liked his orders, and he definitely hadn't liked that pathetic slug Spandam, none of them had, but it wasn't his place to question, then or now. He'd done his duty and followed the chain of command. If he had to do it again, he would, except this time he'd get it right.

The way he'd said 'No' must have made that quite clear, because a couple of the Straw Hats gave him dangerous looks. Nico Robin, on the other hand, seemed to find that rather funny, hiding a half-smile behind her closed book.

Kaku turned reluctantly to the one person his sense of fairness told him he did owe something to. Usopp didn't look like he appreciated being singled out for attention by the former assassin. Kaku tugged absently at the peak of his cap and said, "I will apologize for the ship though. I thought I was doing it a service, putting it to rest. It turned out I was wrong. It did have one trip left in it."

Luffy stared at him. Then a long arm shot out. Kaku tensed, but the pirate captain only hooked a barrel from a stock of supplies on deck. Luffy dragged it over, plopped down on it, leaned an elbow against one knee and looked at Kaku curiously. "So what do you want?"

"I was looking for a ship to take me off this island-" Or at least that's why he'd initially headed towards a fishing village two weeks ago. Then he'd decided to wait until he'd helped the directionally-challenged Roronoa back to his nakama first, since it was quickly obvious they'd all be chasing each other over the archipelago for years otherwise, and Zoro had spared his life, so that gave Kaku an obligation of sorts. 

Though none of that explained what he was doing on this ship now, where he'd get an offer for a free swim sooner than a ticket to anywhere other than hell.

"I was traveling with..." 

And if he finished that sentence, he'd have to explain what he was doing with Zoro in the first place. These people, these pirates, wouldn't understand why he and Zoro were sticking together after trying to kill each other. They wouldn't understand the strange honor of the swordsman's oath between them. 

They certainly wouldn't understand that...other thing. The thing that happened after Kaku had shed his bandages last week and was 'trying his arm out' on Zoro. The thing where the opponents had ended up on the ground, Roronoa strong-arming him into the mossy forest floor and then the moment lasting just a little bit longer than it should have for no reason, until it wasn't just wrestling anymore. Zoro's arms shoving him down, breath washing over his face...Yeah, the pirates certainly wouldn't understand that, because Kaku didn't get it either, and, he suspected, neither did Zoro, though that hadn't stopped him from doing it twice more in the week that followed. Nobody would be able to understand that, or the faint feeling he'd gotten from Zoro that the latter was waiting for something from him...Kaku wasn't a rationalist by nature, but somewhere deep inside he was rather counting on the fact that if nobody could understand that moment, then, in some way, that meant it hadn't happened. Three times. 

He'd been silent too long. But so was everybody else. The two women had exchanged a few quiet words. The cook had lit a cigarette. Zoro was still lounging on the steps, looking at Kaku through nearly closed eyes and Luffy the Pirate King was picking his nose with an absent expression on his face.

"Luffy," Nami hissed, and then she pointed an imperious finger at Kaku. "You didn't answer his question; what do you want?"

"Nothing." Which was the answer to the question all right, just not a very good one.

He gave the forecastle steps one last look. Zoro could defuse this situation if he just explained that Kaku had followed him aboard (why?), that the former CP9 agent had in fact helped him find his way here, because with Zoro's sense of direction, it had taken them two weeks just to get him un-lost and travel to the correct quadrant of the island, following the Sunny's erratic, Marine-dogged path, and make it to the right town with Kaku directing his steps (why?) and-

Kaku turned back to Luffy, because if Zoro wasn't going to say anything, Kaku wasn't going to wave him around as an excuse for the mess he was currently in. He could stand - and probably die - on his own two feet.

"I'm not here for a fight. I just want to leave quietly." 

Sanji showed his teeth in a harsh grin around his cigarette. "Hey, you're the one who jumped on in the first place."

"Feel free to jump off again," Usopp muttered. 

That might have been a solution five minutes ago, but Nami must have set the tiller before coming down to see what all the yelling was about. They were now sailing away from the coastline, and it was too far even for Geppou. Besides...Kaku suddenly realized that he didn't _want_ to run away, or even ask them politely to drop him off along the coast. He'd stuck with Zoro- helped him find his way here- 

"I only came on board because the marines were chasing us. They have a warrant for my arrest - and now they know I'm here, they'll be on the lookout for me. The only way I can leave this archipelago is on an illegal vessel such as this one, and since I'm wanted by the Pirate Council too, my choices are limited." These were all good reasons to be on the Thousand Sunny, but Kaku hadn't thought of any of them initially. He could have escaped the Marines without hopping onto the most notorious pirate ship on the Grand Line. No, he'd followed Zoro. He'd followed a thread of a reason he couldn't understand or acknowledge or even see. "Just get me to the next island and I'll leave you alone."

"The next island?" Luffy perked up, attention back on the conversation. "Is there something cool over there? Hey guys-" to the rest of the crew- "let's go to the next island instead of that other place. It sounds more interesting!"

"What?" Kaku blinked. "No, there's nothing there in particular, it's just so I can get off the ship and continue-"

"There isn't anything interesting?" Luffy looked puzzled. "Why should we go, then?"

"I don't want _you_ to go there. I mean, yes, I do, but only because-"

Luffy clapped his feet together and gave Kaku a lowbrowed look. "You're not making sense. You want to go but you don't? What are you going to do then?"

Kaku pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself that a true warrior did not lose his temper. 

"I. Don't. Know." He spoke calmly and carefully, because it was none of these pirates' business if Kaku was suddenly sick of being out of place in a world he'd sacrificed his entire existence for. "I don't know. When you destroyed the World Government, you destroyed the only purpose I ever had. Maybe I should have killed myself, like Blueno and Kalifa did, but I didn't. I wanted to master my powers first, maybe find...something. I spent the last year on the run, honing my skills, and then I tried to defeat Zoro. I would have killed him." Oddly enough, that didn't get the reaction he'd half expected. Nobody seemed to think that trying to kill Zoro was all that remarkable. "But I failed. He let me live so that I could challenge him again some day, which I intend to." Still no reaction. "In the meantime...I have no idea how I ended up on this ship. You can either take me to the next island along the log pose and drop me off there, or try to kill me if you think you can. It's your choice."

Luffy glanced at Zoro and then scratched his head beneath the rim of his hat. "Oh, I guess I have to make a decision then." He nodded sagely on his barrel, then clicked his fingers, eyes widening. "Hey! I just remembered something really important!"

Kaku met the Pirate King's wide-eyed gaze, waiting to hear what was more important than the decision whether he was going to live or die.

"Aren't you the guy who can turn into a giraffe? Can you do that now?! I missed it last time and I want to see you turn into a giraffe!"

Kaku's sense of reality crumbled. Oh god, his pride moaned, we lost to _that_...? 

But, as his own words had just illustrated, what did he have to lose? Or maybe it was just the loopy grin without an ounce of malice behind it that got past his defenses. Kaku found himself shrugging. "If you want." It'd just be a few more people laughing at him.

Feeling rather disconnected, he dumped his bag onto the deck, slipped off his overcoat and hooked his thumbs beneath the tsuba of his katana. One flick slipped his sheathed swords from their belt-loops; he caught them by the scabbard and tossed them at Zoro, who picked them out of midair without a word.

It was the look on the cook's face - eyes round, curlicue eyebrows shot up, mouth shaping into an increasingly knowing smirk - that told Kaku that the gesture was perhaps rather unexpected for someone who'd just informed the world that he'd tried to kill Zoro recently and intended to do so again in the future. But Sanji didn't say anything. 

Kaku closed his eyes, more out of resignation and incipient embarrassment than because he needed to concentrate, and slipped directly into his fully transformed state. Then he had to maneuver his head around, because giraffes and sail riggings were not designed to get along.

The reaction was explosive. "IT'S A GIRAFFE!!"

What did you expect, Kaku inwardly sighed, a baby piano?

Luffy's jaw had hit the deck - literally, and where did he get off making fun of other people's devil fruit powers? 

"THAT'S AMAZING!" And then the Pirate King dissolved into good-natured laughter, like a little kid. He looked like he was about to fall off his barrel and bounce.

The talking reindeer in a hat was staring at Kaku as if he'd never seen anything so remarkable in his life. "Huge!"

"It's a giraffe! It's a giraffe in a suit!" Luffy hollered, nearly choking.

Next to Luffy, Usopp had gone a rather odd purple color, as if trying really, really hard not to laugh. Then he spluttered and bent over the barrel, head on Luffy's shaking shoulders. 

Nami had a cheerful pink spot on each cheek, lips pinched to keep some form of composure. Sanji was giving Kaku a quizzical stare, Nico Robin was smiling, eyes unreadable, and Zoro's mouth had quirked up at the corner, the bastard.

Deciding that he'd fully earned his ticket to the next island, however chilly the trip would be, Kaku shook his head free of a trailing yardline and started to change back.

"That is so cool!" Luffy gasped, trying to catch his breath through a few remaining chuckles, and then he slapped his thigh in a grand gesture. "Right! It's decided then! I'll let you join my crew! We need a shipwright anyway."

Kaku was in that delicate stage of his transformation where quadruped morphed into biped. It was not a good moment to flounder in surprise. He ended up hitting the deck with his rump, stilt-like hind legs awkwardly splayed. That just started the Pirate King laughing again. 

" _Are you insane?!_ " 

The bellow had been pretty much universal, though Kaku thought Nico Robin had merely murmured "Are you sure?" and Zoro hadn't said anything.

Kaku lost the rest of the transformation with a snap that tossed him back against the mast. Nobody noticed. 

"What about what he did to Merry?!" Usopp shouted.

"If he hadn't dumped Merry into the Aqua Laguna, we'd all be dead," Zoro suddenly said, eyes closed and arms beneath his head as if he was about to take a nap right there on the forecastle steps. "Though of course, that's not why he did it. If he'd known, he'd have left Merry to rot at Water 7 and watched us drown at Enies Lobby."

"That's right," Kaku finally managed to say; he was beyond being confused about which side Zoro was on, if any. "I'm an enemy, you cannot seriously-"

"You certainly were a dangerous and determined enemy," murmured Robin. "Trust me, though, that doesn't disqualify you from joining this crew."

"Huh?!" Nami spun on her nakama. "You're agreeing to this? He kidnapped you!"

Nico Robin gave her crewmate an enigmatic smile. "It's the captain's decision."

"I-..." Kaku was a bit lost; forget Zoro, he didn't know which side _he_ was arguing for any more. 

"Excuse me for being rational," the cook drawled, flicking ash into the wind, "but he's not actually a shipwright, _captain_. He's one of the old government's pet killers."

Luffy cocked his head at Sanji, looking confused. "But Ice-ossan said he was a Galley-la foreman." 

The cook gave his captain a thoughtful look. "True...I guess that makes him good enough, whatever else he is." 

Kaku tried again. "Excuse me-" 

"It's decided! You're our shipwright! It's a good thing we got you now. Blackbeard put a hole in our ship, above the waterline. That's why we can't sail very fast, otherwise the water gets in. We have to fix that before we fight him again."

Kaku forgot what he was initially about to say. "Fight Blackbeard? The one who defeated three of the four Pirate Emperors and fought off the combined forces of the New Marines and the Revolution? _That_ Blackbeard?"

"Yeah, eventually, but can you turn into a giraffe again first?!"

"No!" Kaku snapped, trying to collect himself. "I am- I was a Cipher Pol Agent, you're a pirate- Why the hell should I join you?"

"'Cause you got nowhere else to go," Luffy answered with a 'duh' look on his expressive face. "Anyway, if I'm the one who took your purpose, it seems right I should give you something else to do."

Kaku stared at him, speechless, for what felt like a very long time, until the inner confusion grew too hard to bear and he had to drop his gaze to the decking. 

He wasn't...that wasn't...that...made no damn sense whatsoever...

Still unable to think of anything to say, or to look directly at Luffy, he glanced at the other crewmembers.

Nami was scrutinizing him, as frank and honest a stare as he'd ever received. She didn't look happy, but she shrugged elaborately when she caught his gaze. "It's the captain's decision," she echoed.

"At least you said sorry for Going Merry," the reindeer added, nodding sagely. "And I'm sure that once you get to know Robin, you'll feel sorry for kidnapping her, too."

"No I won't," Kaku said tersely. He was getting a headache.

There was a ferocious stomp. Usopp surged forward and speared Kaku with an indignant finger...from somewhere behind Luffy's right shoulder. "I have just one thing to say! I don't agree with this at all, and I'll never forgive you for trying to get rid of Merry! So I'll be keeping an eye on you. I'll be double-checking any repairs you make. The minute you do anything suspicious, I'll kick you overboard!" When Kaku turned his head to stare at him, he disappeared entirely behind his captain. "Or maybe I'll let Luffy do it. I don't waste my time on small fry. Or Zoro can. Or Sanji. We've got plenty of guys on board who can kick your ass, including me. We're not afraid of you!"

Kaku was pretty sure he remembered getting rid of Usopp in about three seconds back at Water 7, but maybe the man had improved. Not that that was the point; Kaku wasn't looking for a fight, he was only...

At some juncture, the cook had turned and climbed the steps, grumbling at Zoro to get his lazy ass out of the way. He glanced back from the galley door. "I'll go get some food and booze and stuff." 

His captain threw up his arms. "Yeah!"

"...I was only looking for safe passage to the next island..."

A hand thrust his swords at him. "Here."

Kaku took them mechanically. Zoro was crouched before him with that edged grin on his face, which Kaku knew by now meant that the first mate was actually really pleased about something. That just made the confusion worse. 

"But I am-...I was-...I-..." Kaku slumped against the mast and stared blindly at the horizon. "...Did I just become a pirate?"

"Yeah, I know the feeling. One minute I'm a notorious pirate hunter, the next minute this grinning idiot pressgangs me into a buccaneer crew of _two_ and says we're sailing for the Grand Line. Your head will stop spinning sooner or later."

"But that doesn't mean we get used to the level of weird this crew reaches some days." That grumble had come from the cook, who'd casually vaulted down from the forecastle with half a dozen bottles in his arms, and was now handing one to the former CP9 agent. Sanji's expression was neutral. Unlike Usopp, he hadn't mentioned keeping an eye on Kaku, but the latter didn't think it needed to be said. Yet Sanji wasn't protesting. Did he trust his crazy captain that much...? Why? Kaku had had the greatest respect for Lucci, but if he'd seen him do something this insane, he'd have put him on report. 

The bottle got waved at him again. "Here, have some," Sanji said, in a voice that suggested that Kaku looked like he needed it. "I'll get some food going in a minute. Any excuse is good for a celebration on this boat. A heads up; Luffy will have you turning into a giraffe all day. He loves his party tricks."

"Huh...I..." Kaku finally rallied and waved the liquor away. "No thank you, I don't drink."

The cook reeled back. So did the navigator nearby. Even Nico Robin looked startled.

"You don't drink?" The curly eyebrow was flexing like a spring. "And you made friends with the prickly bastard boozehound? What the fuck?"

"Shut up, crap-cook. Here, I'll have his share." Zoro reached across Kaku and snagged two bottles.

Five minutes later, a slapdash party was underway. Kaku was still sitting against the mast with a fruit juice in his hand, coming to a simple conclusion, one he should have reached a year ago. These pirates were insane. That special kind of insanity that allowed them to barrel through impossible obstacles because they were simply too nuts to realize they were insurmountable. And he'd just joined them. 

Though it was only temporary. He'd slip away when they reached the next island. He simply wasn't pirate material. Kaku had a great respect for rules, and pirates consistently broke all of them. The rules were what had made Kaku an agent of justice and peace, rather than a simple killer. Not that the unnamed captain back there, with his Wanted poster, would appreciate the distinction...Kaku felt his mild headache throb again.

He sighed, stared up blindly at the forecastle, and then focused and followed the lines of the rigging and the aft turret with a professional eye. 

"This is a beautiful ship."

"Yeah, we're proud of it," Zoro said. He'd stayed seated next to Kaku, downing the contents of the bottle at a good clip. "You're going to have your work cut out, taking care of it. We're kind of bad at that."

"I'll do my best." He'd spent five years as a shipwright and he'd liked it, even if it had been a front. Kaku had always known when to enjoy life's unexpected bonuses; it kept him from enjoying the constants - bloodshed, orders, deceit - as much as some of the others had. That was why he was going to enjoy this party and the fact these crazy people weren't going to kill him today. He would also fix their ship if he could; he'd consider it paying his passage. He'd be leaving one day soon without thanks or goodbyes - the way the undercover agent had always left - so he'd do what he could for them in the meantime. It was only fair. 

"Turn into a giraffe again!"

But as for leaving, that same sense of fairness was telling him that he should wait until after the Straw Hats had tangled with Blackbeard. To put a hole in Adam wood, the pirate's attack must have been fearful and the structural damage was probably extensive. The Straw Hats were going to chase after the rogue anyway, so the ship needed to be reinforced first, and that would take a lot of time. Going after Blackbeard without approval from the recently formed New World pirate council - who were trying to stop a repeat of this past year's devastating wars between Pirate Emperors - would be breaking the rules again, as far as Kaku could tell, but the Straw Hats would be doing so in order to put a notorious mass-murderer at the bottom of the ocean where he belonged. Which, in a weird light and if you squinted, could almost be seen as the right thing to-

"Kaku!"

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Turn into a giraffe!" Luffy was on all fours, his arms and legs and neck stretched out into a caricature of some kind of ungulate or other, to Chopper and Usopp's delight.

His captain was giving Kaku an eager look, along with what could conceivably be seen as an order. Kaku sighed and got to his feet. "Fine, one last time. I don't want to get tangled in the rigging."

"YEAH!"

Zoro wordlessly held out one hand for Kaku's swords.

"I..." Kaku stared at his weapons as if they could give him the right words if he gripped them hard enough. "...Thanks...for-" 

"Do that thing where you fold yourself into a giraffe-box," Zoro said, loudly enough to be overheard. "That'll go over like a ton of ham joints."

"Giraffe-box?!" Luffy shouted, eyes dazzled.

"Thanks," Kaku repeated with an entirely different emphasis, shoving his katana into the outstretched palm.

"No problem," Zoro said, a smirk half-hidden by the neck of the bottle. 

The celebrations lasted most of the afternoon, the closing fireworks provided by a large fleet of Marines which attacked them around four o'clock.

 

 

***

 

Zoro uncorked the next bottle with a flick of his thumb, while he watched Kaku fold himself into...well, it sure looked like a box. Luffy was laughing so hard he was going to need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a minute, and they wouldn’t be able to count on their doctor to do it, since he was about to pass out too, and Usopp along with him. Kaku's speckled face was a bit red and resigned, but he was taking it like the trooper he was. 

Nami was suddenly blocking Zoro's views of the circus, hands on her hips. Zoro looked up to find the witch studying him like he was a strongbox with a particularly complicated lock to pick. Then he twisted his head to the left, where Sanji had just sat down, fingers idly playing with a cigarette and eyes like a hawk's. Zoro turned away from the cook to look to the right, where Nico Robin was primly crossing her ankles as she put her book on her knee and turned the same penetrating stare on him. 

Zoro looked at Robin, at Nami, at Sanji...

"...What?"


	3. Through the Door

Kaku dodged down a hallway and ghosted right past a squad of sword-toting guards who were all helpfully looking in the wrong direction. The easiest way to deal with ground troops was to not deal with them at all. It was obvious, but the former CP9 agent had so far had little success persuading Zoro or Luffy of that. Sanji, Robin and Chopper paid lip service to the argument, but still managed to barrel through their fair share of opponents who could have just as easily been circumvented. Usopp, on the other hand, had immediately agreed with him that avoiding a fight was good strategy, but Kaku didn't think that was really a ringing endorsement of his powers of persuasion...As for Nami, she had pointed out that she had already come to that conclusion without Kaku's help, thank you very much, and if the rest of the knuckleheads wanted to do it the hard way, she'd use them as decoys while she got the job done.

He hoped Nami was getting the job done right now. He was trying to find her to make sure of it, but the Straw Hats had been hopelessly scattered throughout this Marines Grand Base almost an hour ago. It would have been bad enough if it had actually been filled with Marines, but it had, regrettably, fallen just the day before to a counter-rebel faction fighting against the Reformation. The men on this base were desperate former Marines who'd stayed faithful to the old World Government, and of course the Straw Hats, who'd caused the downfall of same, were their least favorite people in the world. Kaku had discovered that this kind of massive bad luck dogged the Thousand Sunny at all times...From the sounds of destruction nearby, the former Marines were having a worse day of it than the pirates, but this still wasn't a very good position to be in, especially if the rebel Admiral really did have a 'secret weapon' up his sleeve, as he'd claimed before Luffy punched his lights out.

Kaku's steps slowed and stopped. He was in an enclosed courtyard near the top of the fortress, like a deep room with many doors and no roof. There was no one around, but the sense of personal danger was suddenly acute. His eyes scoured the shadows, the empty doorways, the ivy climbing one of the walls. A pigeon broke from the eaves, making him tense. 

The blow came out of nowhere, too quick to duck. Even through Tekkai, he felt muscles bruise deep in his left shoulder. Kaku staggered, spun around-

Claws punched into his gut. 

Kaku let out a strangled cough and when air whistled back into his lungs he smelled musk, cologne and the scent of dried blood, faint and too familiar.

_No!_

Flesh tore as he ripped away. The claws had sunk into his abdominal muscles despite Tekkai, but they hadn't managed to gut him, even if it felt like they had. He dodged, parried another blow- fighting, but only to get away. He didn't want-

_No! It can't be! He's dead!_

A hand grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against a wall before he could make a run for it.

"Kaku."

Kaku shuddered. He didn't want- didn't want this to be real. But it was. 

He focused on golden eyes, colder than the sea, just as deadly.

"Lucci- How-"

"I'm disappointed." The claws at his throat tightened; the sound of stressed cartilage crackled in Kaku's ears. "I did not expect this of you."

Kaku grabbed the wrist, tried to wrench free. The backhand rocked him into the wall, shards of light and pain in his head and the paw still wrapped around his throat.

"I trusted all of you, even that fool Jyabura. And you above all. That you could turn your back on our work..." Despite his words, Lucci's tone was perfectly flat. The voice of one who'd never cared, except for one single cause which Kaku had betrayed. There were no emotions for a comrade who'd become just one more thing to kill. "I am very disappointed..."

Kaku stared at him, paralyzed, the words taking him in the chest like the blows. Ingrained respect - awe - ten years of common faith - kept him pinned.

The cold, cultured voice kept coming from that savage leopard mask. "I was hoping I would have the chance to-" then the golden eyes flickered shut, partly in annoyance. "Tekkai."

The sword split the air between the two men and thudded harmlessly as it hit Lucci on the forearm. Kaku felt the shudder of the blow in his own bones. Survival instinct kicked in and this time he managed to tear himself away, claws leaving grooves in his chin and neck.

There was a flurry of blows a few feet away. Kaku staggered until he was crouched against the wall. He turned to take stock just as Zoro pushed Lucci back with a double-bladed strike. 

Zoro glanced back briefly at Kaku. "You okay?"

Kaku coughed and nodded. Beyond Zoro, he could see Lucci flexing his claws, the cold light of the hunter in his eyes as he watched both men. 

"Good. I'll take care of this," Zoro said shortly. "You go."

"Defending your nakama?" Lucci made it sound like a distasteful dirty word. "Neither of you have a chance against me. Do you really want to die in his stead? 

"A chance?" Zoro sounded honestly confounded. "You're delusional, pussycat. Kaku could take you down as easily as I could. I just don't think he wants to, while I'm looking forward to it. Oi, Kaku, get out of here. The others need your help."

Kaku knew that. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from Lucci. He could almost taste the predatory power in the air, greater than before. And it wasn't compromised by concern for others. It wasn't something that could be defeated, that could _die-_

The leopard-man showed no trace of annoyance or spite. "I know you defeated that old Shichibukai, Roronoa, but Hawk-eyes' reputation means nothing to me. I never trusted those so-called pirate gods and I always knew I could take any of them out if I was ordered to."

Zoro looked bored with the talking already. "You're full of it. Do you-" then suddenly, and to the surprise of both former agents, he stepped back and put away his swords.

"Giving up already?"

"No." Zoro turned his back on Lucci with supreme unconcern. "But someone else has standing dibs on you-"

"PIGEON-GUY!"

"-and I have better things to do than watch you get pounded again." Zoro grabbed Kaku's elbow in passing - and hoisted him to his feet and shoved him against the wall with a stern look. "Come on. Nami and Usopp are trying to lower the harbor chain to free our ship and get us out of here, and I think they may be in trouble. We don’t need you wimping out on us now."

"Go ahead and run, Kaku," Lucci said over his shoulder, ignoring Luffy's offended 'Hey! I'm over here!' "Sooner or later, Justice will find you."

"Yes..." For an instant, Kaku had seen himself through Lucci's eyes, in a vision of the world he'd once shared. Seen himself as he once was: in the right, a position that could not change even if the whole world condemned him for it. The cause they had served was an absolute. Kaku should have stayed that path whatever his situation, even if he'd ultimately walked it alone. It had been a vision of absolute beauty, extreme and pure; absolute condemnation for his failure, too, which had left him shaken and unable to fight back. 

Or, as Zoro so aptly put it, wimping out. 

Kaku shook himself. "I'm coming," he said, hand pressed to his injuries as he cut across the room towards the door through which Zoro had disappeared. "I'm sorry, Lucci. I have to go. I'd wish you well, but I doubt that's an option." 

"Traitor."

Kaku wiped the blood from his mouth and smiled ruefully. "No, worse. A pirate. Zoro, wait up!"

"Why should I?" came the answer way up ahead, which managed to sound both scathing and quite pleased with itself. The bastard was always insufferable when he was right...

He thought Lucci said something else behind him, but Kaku was already over the threshold, following fast on Zoro's heels with no time to waste. He had to get _ahead_ of Zoro before the idiot got hopelessly lost, or else Kaku would be searching for both him and the lever to the harbor chain and his other nakama, and really, the life he'd chosen was complicated enough already. 

Kaku ignored the pain etched all over his abdomen, hit high speed and managed to catch Zoro at the main door, behind which was posted a whole squad of former Marines who were about to have a very bad day.


	4. Into the Future

Kaku had expected the Thousand Sunny to be surrounded and occupied by the enemy, but there were piles of unconscious troops all over the harbor instead. The reason why was on deck, waving with hearts in his eyes as Kaku, Zoro, Nami and Usopp staggered towards their ship.

"Nami-swaaaan! You're safe! And as beautiful as ever! Nobody else could be so stunningly lovely while running and sweating like that! I see you guys are okay too," Sanji added indifferently. Then he took a second and more alarmed look as Kaku fell rather than climbed over the gunwale, leaving smears of blood on the wood. "Damn, who did that to you? It was just a bunch of loser ex-Marines."

Kaku looked around in alarm. "Isn't Luffy back?!" 

"Luffy? No. I've got Robin-chan and Chop-"

"Wah! Kaku! You're bleeding! Someone get a doctor!"

"-and Chopper," Sanji continued, "who'll take care of you in a minute- hey, where you going?"

Kaku tried to get off the ship and back to shore, but Zoro hauled him away from the railing. 

"Stop it. Luffy's fine."

"He's not fine!" Kaku protested. "It's been over half an hour! We have to go back and help!"

"What happened to Captain-san?" Robin asked, as she gave an exhausted Usopp a hand - or five - into the ship.

Zoro shoved Kaku down against the mast for support. "Ran into someone. Chopper, you take care of this stubborn herbivore, I'll go back for Luffy." 

"And then I'd end up going back for you both," Sanji said behind him. "Tell me what happened, and I'll look for the rubber-brained wonder. You stay here and stop these has-been Marines from boarding our ship until we can sail. I warn you, they're persistent."

The heaps of groaning men on the dock looked well-kicked rather than persistent. The coast was clear, so Kaku had to go back. He'd left Luffy alone to face Lucci. He'd thought his captain could win easily enough, but if Luffy wasn't back yet-

"No, stay seated," Chopper said, little hooves pushing at his shoulder. 

Kaku barely glanced at the deep crisscrosses Lucci had left in his chest and abdomen. "It looks worse than it is, it's not life-threatening."

"It may not be life-threatening, but it'll stop you from swinging your swords with anything like the same core strength as before if I don't fix it soon," Chopper stated, suddenly all doctor again, older and more authorative than his years.

In the background, Kaku heard Nami gasp, Usopp panic and Sanji drawl, in a cold, speculative voice, "That bastard's still alive? He's got the nine lives of a cat..." Zoro must have explained what their captain was facing.

And then there was a sound like the world's largest elastic band twanging overhead and a shout of "Set sail nooooooooow! Hurryyyy!"

Nami, Usopp and Robin leapt to the rigging and Sanji was at the anchor before Luffy even hit the deck.

"You're okay..." At the sight of his grinning captain, Kaku felt the strength that had been pushing him for the past thirty minutes suddenly give out, and he leaned back heavily against the mast. 

Chopper gave Luffy a quick assessing glance and must have decided that Kaku needed his help first. He set to cleaning out the deep lacerations down Kaku's front with disinfectant laced with enough painkiller to take the bite off. 

The ship was gliding unchallenged out of the fortified Marine harbor. Once more they'd gotten themselves out of a heap of trouble, but Kaku couldn’t feel the usual wave of relief. He was just glad Luffy was okay, even though Kaku knew what that meant...Well, it was done now. It'd had to be done. Lucci would have followed them all the way to hell otherwise, now that he was back on their tracks.

Zoro crouched down by Kaku's side. He grabbed sterile gauze and some of Chopper's antiseptic mixture, and swabbed at the claw marks on Kaku's neck and chin with an expression that didn't invite comment from anybody. On the face of it, the wounds Chopper was treating - a little more gently - were the serious ones. But the scratches Zoro was roughly caring for had hurt more, on a level where pain was harder to ignore; they'd been personal, they'd cut him along with Lucci's accusations, they'd ripped up old memories. They'd soon be bandaged and in the past. Kaku wondered how Zoro had known...

Luffy squatted on the deck a few feet away, looking around contentedly as his ship creaked and caught the wind. He had quite a few claw marks himself, on his arms, across his front, and two parallel scratches on his left cheek all the way to his nose, none of which defeated the cheerful smile. 

Kaku stirred. "You had me worried, captain. It took you longer than I thought." He realized that what he was asking was 'did it take him long to die?' and felt angry at himself. 

"Nah, wasn't a problem," Luffy said with that wide shit-eating grin of his. "Araaa, it wasn't even fun. Not that it was fun last time I fought him either, that was painful! But this time it wasn't fun because it was boring. He's gotten weaker." 

"No, he was much stronger," Kaku corrected automatically, remembering the power in the air, vital, dangerous, unbeatable. Even now, he couldn't believe Lucci was really gone...

"Yeah, he's improved this past year, I could feel it." Zoro sounded grumpy as he applied gauze and surgical tape to Kaku's throat; probably disappointed he'd not been able to fight Lucci himself. He was always looking for new opponents to 'keep from getting soft'. "You forget how much tougher you got, Luffy; it's all relative."

"No, he's weaker," Luffy declared, head shaking on his rubber neck. "He's lost it. I don't think he knows what he's doing any more."

Nami was nearby, checking their course against the log pose. She looked down and prodded her captain on the uninjured shoulder. "Oh, is that so? He sure tore you up, though."

Luffy puffed up his cheeks and blew on one of his scratches as if that might make it go away or hurt less. "Well, it was hard, you know, to beat him up without really beating him up."

Kaku tried to figure that one out and failed unconditionally. "What?"

"Yeah, he just wouldn't quit. He kept coming after me every time I tried to leave. In the end, I had to stick a large rock on him and then I ran off real fast while he was trying to get-"

"He's still alive?!"

Chopper rolled like a furry beach ball, propelled back by Kaku's violent attempt to get up. An attempt foiled by a strong arm around his shoulders. "Oi, calm down, you dumb giraffe. You're gonna start bleeding again."

"Why didn't you kill him?!" He knew Luffy usually spared his opponents, but surely this time he must have realized-

Luffy had rocked back a bit with a confused expression on his face. "'Cause you didn't want me to. Why else? Why are you shouting?"

"Me?! _I_ didn't want you to?!" Kaku stared at him, aghast. "But- No, I never said that, I _did_ -"

A hand clamped over his mouth, muffling his words. A hand that was growing out of his shoulder; something that he was just never going to get used to. 

Robin was on the forecastle steps, one of her real hands lifted. "Don't say it."

"Hmm-mh?!" 

She had a sad, wise smile on her face. "We've been sailing together for months now. You've told us a lot about Lucci in that time; more than I think you realize. Believe me, this crew doesn't appreciate attempts to protect them at your expense. Remember that before you deny the truth too strenuously."

"You shouldn't do anything strenuously," a ruffled Chopper muttered, sitting back down next to Kaku. "You are injured, you know."

The truth? What did that woman mean, the- 

_There'd been a hand around Kaku's throat that very first time, too, but it hadn't injured him. "Not bad. Your Rankyaku is particularly strong for someone your age. I can see why they made you an agent." The hand had dropped him. He'd staggered back against the wall. 'Not bad' was a nice way of saying he'd been outclassed from the start of the match but had at least halfway held his own. "You'll do. Stop by the office to get your orders; you're on my team for this next mission."_

_"Th-thank you sir, it’s an honor to work with-"_

_The renowned agent - the best in all of CP9's history, even if he had just turned twenty - walked away, uninterested in honor. "Don't call me sir. We're standing on the same line now, you and I. The last line. We're leaving at four AM tomorrow."_

_"Yes s-..."_

_"My name is Lucci."_

_Kaku followed him out of the CP9 training area, with the intuition that he'd found a man he could follow and kill for..._

"This is not a risk we can take." The hand had dropped from his mouth, but his voice still sounded muffled in his ears. "You should have finished him, Luffy. He'll come after us. He'll kill someone next time."

"We won't let him," Luffy said, looking down at the finger he'd poked through a hole in his red top.

"He's not going to give up. Ever. He'll come after me, after all of us. Next time, I'll have to-"

"We won't let him do that either."

Kaku breathed out and twisted around to look over his shoulder. "Zoro, you would have killed him, right?"

Zoro lifted an eyebrow. "Me? No. I wanted to fight him, but I'd have let him live." His gaze fell to Kaku's shredded abs and he muttered something under his breath, it sounded like 'but mighta cut him up a bit'.

Kaku looked at Luffy- then turned back to Zoro again, because the first mate could at least be reasoned with. "This is a very stupid decision."

Zoro shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first."

"It might get us all killed."

"Feh, he's standing at the back of a long line for that, and I don't think he'll get another shot." Zoro's eyes flickered to Luffy's. Their captain was examining his hat attentively for damage and didn't notice, but other crewmembers around set up a chorus of confirmation. 

"Yeah, he sounds like someone we'd better avoid in the future," Nami declared, as if it would be as easy as sailing around a large rock. Usopp nodded violently and trailed after her, explaining that, with his past experience fighting werewolves, the stupid boss cat wouldn't be enough of a challenge for him anyway, and if Kaku didn't want him killed, then he, Usopp, would let Lucci live.

It was true that a small part of Kaku didn't want the death of an old comrade and former hero, even though Lucci obviously did not share the sentiment and had been about to kill him. But what Kaku felt about Lucci's death at this juncture was unimportant. This was a matter of their crew's safety. Besides, Kaku had made his choice back there; he was willing to live with the consequences. When he'd agreed to dirty his hands for peace and justice ten years ago, when he'd accepted to betray on command, when he'd killed on order, he'd always been ready to live with the consequences. 

"Luffy, next time- look, be reasonable. I chose to be a pirate-"

"Good for you," Chopper said absently, as he pulled a first length of catgut through torn muscle. "Can you please stop talking now?" 

Luffy leaned in as if he'd only just noticed what his ship's doctor was doing. "Waaaaa, those scratches on your tummy look nasty. Sanji, we need some meat over here!"

Sanji was already heading their way with a plate of cold cuts. "Luffy, you're the only one who seems to derive instant health out of ham. Kaku's marginally more human."

"Yeah, Chopper's taking care of him, the meat's for me."

"And I'm surprised...why?" Sanji muttered, as the plate was whisked from his fingers by a nine-foot-long arm. 

Up in the forecastle, Nami shouted orders for a change of course. Kaku closed his eyes as the usual constructive chaos descended upon the ship and got them moving in the right direction. Looked like the Lucci problem had been relegated to an indefinite future. But this was only putting off the inevitable. Lucci's determination in the pursuit of Justice was renowned. Sooner or later, Kaku would have to confront that part of his past and bury it the hard way. 

He was quite willing to take that last, decisive step...but his nakama apparently weren’t going to _let_ him, and would make sure he was never in a position where he would have to choose between their safety and a part of himself. 

Damn it...he appreciated the gesture...more than he could ever say, and it was more than he surely deserved. But this was Rob Lucci they were talking about. Taking this approach was a recipe for disaster. Not that that would stop these brave, idiotic friends of his, who specialized in doing things the hard way.

Kaku had a vision of Lucci chasing after them, and being dodged and avoided and carefully left mostly unharmed each time by a conciliating crew, all for the sake of their nakama, the one that Lucci had sworn to eliminate. It was almost ludicrous. From now on, Lucci would be safe from the full force of the Straw Hats, but Kaku wondered if his former leader might not end up dying of an ulcer instead, because on some level that was bound to be rather frustrating...

Chopper told him off sternly when he laughed, and it hurt anyway so he stopped and decided to rest against Zoro's shoulder and sleep through the doctor's ministrations instead. Tomorrow didn't look so grim after all.


End file.
